Cheney: CIA interrogation investigation motivated by politics

The Justice Department's investigation into the CIA's interrogation techniques is motivated by politics, according to former US Vice President Dick Cheney.

Former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney believes the Justice Department's probe of CIA interrogation techniques is politically motivated. "I just think it's an outrageous political act that will do great damage, long term, to our capacity to be able to have people take on difficult jobs, make difficult decisions, without having to worry about what the next administration is going to say," Cheney said in an interview aired on Fox News Sunday, according to The Associated Press. After the release of an internal CIA inspector general's report, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder requested a deeper investigation into detainee abuse at the hands of CIA interrogators. "Cheney called the techniques 'good policy,' saying he was comfortable in cases where interrogators went beyond what they were specifically authorized to do," AP reported. "The CIA report found they included cases of interrogators threatening a detainee with a handgun and an electric drill." Mr.Cheney believes the techniques helped keep "mass casualty" terrorist acts from occurring on U.S. soil. Additionally, according to Cheney, the Justice Department had approved the usage of harsh interrogation tactics in legal memos to the White House. "Now you get a new administration and they say, well, we didn't like those opinions, we're going to go investigate those lawyers and perhaps have them disbarred," Cheney said, according to AP. "I just think it's an outrageous precedent to set, to have this kind of, I think, intensely partisan, politicized look back at the prior administration."